| A TRIBUTE TO MR. THRASH. This is a little story of a man who called himself Mr. Thrash on various internet forums. As it has passed almost ten years (He passed away in 2004) I must first of all say that my memory of Mr. Thrash is a bit foggy. But his impact on the development of Ruuth's Inn and in the long run Ruthless Metal can't be denied. Mr. Thrash was a very reserved and private man and he didn't like to talk about himself, he was more interested in talking about thrash metal. But I learned that his name was Jonas and that he was from Gothenburg, Sweden. I can't recall where we first started to talk, but I would guess that it was on the Bright Eyes-forum (that now has evolved into Sweden Rock Magazine) in the late nineties, where he thought me what real thrash was about, that there were more bands than just Slayer, Testament, Exodus, Megadeth and Metallica. One thing I can recall is that he said that he could help me out if I did a thrash site, so I started to work slowly on it and it developed into this site eventually, and one thing is for sure that this site would never have been made if it wasn't for the support and knowledge of Mr.Thrash. This was the presentation he gave me to put up on this site when he started to collaborate with our site. "I was born in the early 70s, I grew up in a town called kungälv north of Gothenburg Sweden. I´m just crazy about thrash metal, and that has been what I grew up with. I live with my family, girlfriend and my daughter and son. I actually like all kinds of thrash, fast, heavy, mid-tempo, clean vocals, not so clean vocals etc. Favorites are hard to say, but these are some of the bands I really worship, Destruction, Razor, Apocalypse, Mezzrow, Sacrifice, Possessed, Xentrix, Coroner, Viking, Atrophy, Living Death, Turbo, and alot of not so famous thrash bands. I have traded/selling/buying thrash metal lps/eps/ "7/pic.lp/pic.eps/pic "7/demos etc for many years, and I have a great collection of old thrash shirts. I´m not into that trading/selling anymore (my children eats money !), but I have my albums and stuff that I will listen to til the day I die! My biggest dream is that all this "lesser known thrash bands" are NOT going to be forgotten, it´s incredible how many good thrash metal albums who never scored the hall of fame. That´s why I like to spread information and music around me. And that´s why I support this great page." And he sure did spread information, he taught me a lot. Always telling me about rare thrash gems he discovered over the years. Before mp3s where widely available and no youtube or spotify was heard of. He used to burn CD-Rom discs for me and our other reviewer Per-Ola Nilsson. He must have burned about 50-100 CD's and send them to us just so that we could hear his beloved albums. And he refused to receive any money for this favour. He even posted me an ex of Lääz Rockit's LP Annihilation Principle and a Fallen Angel-CD, free of charge. He also wanted to contribute to the site, he wrote reviews and he gave away a bunch of thrash metal albums through our site to fans all over the world. But one day he just went quiet, And days turned to weeks. and someone told me to read the Destruction-forum because Mr. Thrash has died. It was the summer of 2004, Schmier of Destruction posted this sad news up on Destructions website: "The sad news about the death of our faithful forum mate Jonas " Mr. Thrash" has shocked everybody here. We are all waiting for some more information - it was too fast and too early! Why??? He posted here last time two weeks ago or so! Let´s all give him a last escort into eternity! We will miss you brother! R.I.P.! I´m gonna give U a last respectful dedication on the next DESTRUCTION record - into eternity! SCHMIER!!!" Later on a friend or a relative to Jonas told us through Destruction's forum that he died from meningitis, an inflammation of the brain. He was only 32 years old when he died. The same age as I am right now, how surreal. Someone wrote down my reaction to his death on the Destruction forum, so I can quote myself by saying: "indeed, he taught me everything I knew about thrash without him, I would probably not be listening to thrash at all, or at least there wouldnt be a Ruuth's Inn for sure" He was a member of many metal forums out there, Destruction, Kreator, our forum and Sweden Rock Festival's to name a few. Mr. Thrash never told us that he was ill. We never even met but we talked a lot about metal when the internet was in it's infancy. So there wasn't really any information out there, no metal-archives or so. Ruuth's Inn (That would later develop into Ruthless Metal) was actually the first website on the internet dedicated to thrash metal. There was just some Japanese site that we at the time couldn't translate and some midi files to be found out there. So it came as a shock to hear that he had passed away. Maybe that's why he wanted to spread the word and give away parts of his record collection to people appreciating thrash metal. Who knows what his reasoning was but we were thankful for his kindness and contributions. He once compiled this list of thrash metal albums and showed it to me and it became soon a wantlist for me. After hearing album after album and they all more or less has a special place in my heart. These where his favourites at least in the late nineties, and this list broke some new ground for me personally and a lots of others that was guided by Mr.Thrash and his splendid taste. MR. THRASH RECOMMENDATIONS: Unfortunately I have deleted all our e-mails. And I was finally going to meet Mr.Thrash at this years (2004) Sweden Rock Festival. I was going to look out for a guy with an Exumer-patch on his jacket, but no Exumer patches were to be found at all, so I suppose that he already passed. He didn't answer my e-mails lately either so I was thinking that be had some problems with his internet or so... A few years ago he left the Sweden Rock Magazine-forum because of the standard of the discussions dropped and he was most often seen on Destruction's forum. He was one of the most important fans of thrash metal in Sweden, in the nineties he kept on spreading the word when people didn't want to listen. Fortunately for a new generation he never gave up and now there are hundreds of thrashers all around in Sweden again. When I think of Mr.Thrash I can't stop thinking of the album Cracked Brain by Destruction, he always told me about how great that album was. That was a great memory of a great man. And lately he was really excited that thrash metal was on the rise again. I'll hope that we all join together and salute Mr.Thrash and that we all will keep on waving the flag of thrash. Almost ten years (Now more than twenty) has passed since his death but it feels like yesterday. I never met him in person, but he was definitely one of the nicest guys out there. I have posted a link to his favourite thrash album of all time. Cracked Brain by german thrashers Destruction, please enjoy.
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